BAY CITY, MI — Much has changed for Brian Martindale in the year since he donated his kidney to an ailing 10-year-old girl he had never met before.

He closed the storefront of his business in downtown Bay City, started working as a full-time union painter, welcomed his first grandchild into the world and started a campaign to help others needing organ transplants connect with matching donors.

Now Martindale, a 52-year-old lifelong Bay City resident, is recognized as an honorable mention for the 18th annual Dick Hardy Community Improvement Award. The award given annually by The Bay City Times recognizes people making significant contributions to the community.

“I’m very honored,” Martindale said. “Dick Hardy was such a well-known person in our community. He was involved with helping other people. My late parents read all of his stuff faithfully and introduced me to his writings.”

Martindale on Jan. 11, 2013, underwent surgery to give his left kidney to 10-year-old Jessica Schwerin. Doctors diagnosed Jessica with genetic kidney failure in 2012 and her mother took to a street corner with a sign seeking a donor for her daughter.

Publicity of her plea got noticed by Martindale, who had never met the family although they coincidentally live four blocks from each other, Martindale said.

Martindale said he was registered as a kidney donor and had previously tried to give his kidney to a
friend who didn’t match his blood type. After reading about Jessica’s
plight, he sought to give her his organ if their blood types matched. It
turned out, they did.

“It was like the karma thing,” he said. “It was meant to be.”

Prior to the surgery, Martindale and the Schwerins rode together to University Hospital in Ann Arbor in a limousine provided by fellow Dick Hardy honorable mention Vince Stuart, owner of downtown Bay City’s Stock Pot Diner and Vinny’s Limousine.

“He is a man who gave the gift of life to a little girl and started a community outpouring of physical and financial resources,” Backus said in her nomination. “This was done at a considerable sacrifice of his own physical and financial resources.

“I feel that Bay County gained a feeling of togetherness and is a better place to live,” Backus continued. “I am proud to live in this community.”

As an example of his brand’s motif, Martindale described the meaning of the word “guilty” which emblazons many of his shirts, saying it inverts the popular connotation.

“All of my Karma Inc. designs have a meaning behind them,” he said. “So we have designs that say ‘Guilty of Giving,’ ‘Guilty of Caring,’ ‘Guilty of Loving.’ We turned guilty into a good thing.”

Martindale donates 10 percent of his sales to various charities, and all proceeds from a Christian-themed shirt he designed to charity. Among the charities Martindale has donated to are the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation, which helps children with brain tumors, ALS of Michigan and Great Lakes Bay Region-based Hidden Harvest.

Martindale in December posted a video on the Internet he made with Jessica dubbed “A Kidney for Christmas.” In the video, Martindale and Jessica invite people in need of kidneys to record a short video in which they share their story and list their blood type and then email it to briankarmaincapparel@gmail.com.

Martindale said the point of the video is help those in need of a kidney transplant connect with potential donors “to put a face to their story, because that’s how I found Jessica."

Despite the Christmas tag in the video’s title, Martindale said he intends to endeavor to be ongoing.

“We’re going to keep our effort together, Jessica and I, (and) keep working together to find others’ their kidney match,” he said. “When we were together in the hospital last year after the surgery … I asked if she would help me find kidneys for other people who are sick. She’s a really smart young lady.”

Martindale now works as painter with the Local 1803 union. Ten weeks ago, his son, David, and daughter-in-law, Katie, had their first child, a boy named Max, who was born healthy, Martindale said.

On the horizon, Martindale said he plans to launch a fundraising campaign to try getting his clothing line into stores. There are two trade shows in Chicago in the coming months that Martindale hopes to attend.

“If we can get into one of those, that will get us into department stores,” he said.

To that end, Martindale said he hopes to raise money through Indiegogo.com, an online platform where users can raise money for artistic projects.

Business ambitions aside, Martindale said he plans to remain an active role in Jessica’s life, adding he sees her a couple of times each month.

“On the 11th, we’re going to have dinner together to celebrate our year transplant anniversary at Roma’s,” Martindale said. “I plan on staying in contact with her, watching her grow up healthy and hopefully do things together over the coming years that’ll help other people that are in need of a kidney donation.”